Museum in firing line

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The Italians want to stop the illegal trade in
antiquities. Peter Huck in Los Angeles considers the consequences
for the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Judicial proceedings can move at a glacial pace in Italy, but,
after a 10-year investigation into stolen Italian antiquities,
Roman prosecutors have in view a very high-profile scalp: the
antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Last month, a Roman court charged Marion True, 56, with
knowingly receiving stolen goods. She is also accused of using
false documents to help launder artefacts acquired by the Getty
from a private collection.

The case, which goes to trial in Rome on July 18, could have
far-reaching consequences for the relationship between museums and
international art dealers.

If successful, prosecutors have promised to pursue plunder
allegedly housed in other museums.

"We want this case to be a big deterrent," said Captain
Massimiliano Quagliarella, head of the paramilitary Carabinieri
police unit that investigates archaeological theft.

"It is important to stop the phenomenon of illegal excavations
and illegal exportation by eliminating the demand, and thus
eliminating the offer."

In a brief statement, the Getty said it was "disappointed" the
Italians had decided to try "our extremely well respected
antiquities curator". The museum believes the trial will result "in
her exoneration and end further damage to the personal and
professional reputation of Dr True".

Certainly, the news comes as a blow to the Getty, which was
rocked in October by the sudden resignation of director Deborah
Gribbon, following a feud with the president of the Getty Trust,
Barry Munitz.

True joined the Getty in 1982, serving as assistant to Jiri
Frel, the museum's first antiquities curator, hired in 1973. Two
years after Frel quit in 1984, disgraced by the news that he had
over-inflated the value of donated antiquities, True took over. An
avid collector, she nonetheless returned several looted or stolen
Greek and Roman objects. While the full details of the Italian case
remain unknown until July, the case is believed to involve some 40
objects acquired by the Getty. They include a 5th century BC
sculpture of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The 2.3 metre statue -
valued at $US20 million ($A26 million) in 1987, when the Getty
imported it - attracted controversy following claims it may have
been smuggled from Sicily in the 1970s.

In all fairness, True inherited a collection
amassed in part through questionable purchases.

In 1995, the Getty announced it would only acquire antiquities
with sound provenance.

"We would only consider buying from an established collection
that is known to the world," True told The Art Newspaper,
"so that we do not have the issue of undocumented provenance."

Yet 92 per cent of the Fleischman horde - the Getty's largest
antiquities gain - had no archaeological provenance. Scholars
slated the deal as an example of how the flow of illegal
antiquities is tacitly condoned and abetted by collectors and
museums. Critics of the museum's "freewheeling past" saw a slippery
slope; a strategy via which unprovenanced items in private hands
gained spurious legitimacy in the public realm - a move that may
prove disastrous.

In all fairness, True inherited a collection amassed in part
through questionable purchases. She has made some effort to end
this practice, refusing in 1988 to buy a Byzantine mosaic that had
been stolen.

She has also repatriated plundered artefacts, a well-publicised
move that might rebound on other treasures: one of three stolen
objects returned to Italy by True in 1999 was a Roman head from the
Fleischman collection.

While it is hard to put an accurate figure on this illicit
global traffic, Britain's McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research estimates the annual haul as between $US 50 million and
$US2 billion. In recent years, the trade has also attracted drugs
and arms smugglers.

While the Getty case highlights the illicit antiquities trade,
it also illustrates the tension between Western museums that wish
to hold onto treasures - sometimes acquired in dubious
circumstances - and nations that seek to recover what they regard
as their national patrimony.

Recently, the trend has been towards grudging repatriation.
Italy recently returned the Axum obelisk, looted in the 1930s, to
Ethiopia.

But other items - such as the Elgin Marbles from Greece and the
Rosetta Stone from Egypt, both housed in the British Museum, or the
Winged Victory statue from Greece at the Louvre - remain
contentious.

In this context, the Italian case against True sends a clear
message.

"Foreign governments are frustrated by the continued looting of
their antiquities," says New York attorney Howard Spiegler, who
specialises in cultural heritage issues.

"These indictments reflect that frustration."

According to the Los Angeles Times, True was originally
indicted as part of a wider case featuring two of the Getty's major
suppliers: Italian art dealer Giacomo Medici and an expatiate
American dealer, Emanuel Robert Hecht, based in Paris. This case
was split when Medici opted for a "fast-track" trial with less
exacting evidence rules, hoping for a reduced sentence.

Medici's gamble failed. He is appealing a 10-year jail term,
fines and compensation.

Hecht allegedly sold looted Greek silver to New York's
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The evidence against True is apparently similar to that used
against Medici. So far, True has kept quiet, other than providing
Italian authorities with a deposition in March.

Her Italian lawyer says the curator's transactions were
conducted "in the clear light of day".

The Italian bombshell is a major embarrassment for the Getty. As
director of the Getty Villa, a faux Roman villa due to reopen this
year after refurbishment, True might have expected to savour this
triumph. Instead, she'll be fighting to save her reputation.